American Lighthouses (Krutein, Wernher)

Rating: 5/5
Year: 2008
Genre: Photography / Lighthouses
Read again? Yes

Another bargain-bin beauty. Ten bucks.

This book's a lot thinner than it should be, at just over 140 pages. But it's got plenty of spectacular photos of lighthouses in natural poses.

Krutein's got a damn good eye; he shot all the pics, and there's not a bad one in the lot.

We begin in the Northeast and Great Lakes, then move down the East Coast to Key west, Florida; then along the Gulf Coast to Texas--but there's no pause at Mobile, Alabama, where the Sand Island light guards the entrance to Mobile Bay; there's no Middle Bay light, either. We skip right past the Biloxi, Mississippi light, still standing in the midst of traffic on Highway 90.

I would have loved to see my favorite: the St. George Reef light, too, but on our trip north along the West Coast, we pause at Crescent City's on-shore light without a glimpse of this granite beast 6 miles out in the Pacific.

Even with the "missing" items, this is a gorgeous book.

Lighthouses (Linford, Jenny)

Rating: 5/5
Year: 2006
Genre: Photography
Read again? Yes

I'm STILL not done with Sagan's "Demon Haunted World." So in the meantime, lighthouses.

I found this one in the bargain bin for eight bucks.

I'm not a devoted lighthouse hunter, but they are beautiful buildings, usually in beautiful and/or spectacular settings, and if you can get a sunrise, sunset, clouds or fog somewhere in the shot you've got photographic gold.

This book is gold.

Linford offers nearly 200 pages from around the world (mostly Europe and the U.S.): sunsets, crashing waves, rocky cliffs, snow, mountains.

Come for the architecture, but stay for the view!

Ansel Adams: Landscapes of the American West (Morgan-Griffiths, Lauris)

Rating: 5/5
Year: 2008
Genre: Art / Photography
Read Again? Yup

Since it's taking so long to get through the current read (Carl Sagan's "Demon Haunted World), I need to fill in some space.

This book will fill in a lot of space. It's big. An inch-thick hardcover that weighs a couple of pounds and at won't fit on any bookshelf you've got!

It needs to be big. It's overflowing with 120 of Adams' gorgeous black & white landscapes, clouds, structures, plants, and water photos. The Grand Canyon. Yellowstone Lake. Burned trees in Glacier National Park. Every picture is crisp, distilled to the essentials.

I got a good deal on it--$20 in a bargain bin, in the year it was published. As eye-popping as Adams' work is, that feels almost criminal.